


Living Arrangements

by Moonshine_Givens



Series: Living Arrangements [1]
Category: Justified
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed, character dead - none of our boys, mentions of Ava/Boyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonshine_Givens/pseuds/Moonshine_Givens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little shit. Just a little shit armed with a shitty kitchen knife in this shithole of a trailer in fucking Harlan. Raylan can barely believe that after everything, after putting down so many known killers and mobsters in epic shootings, after facing ruthless murderers and vicious criminals, he’s going to die by the hands of a little shit like Jimmy, the bartender.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I promised I had to graduated college and that'll be away for a bit? LIES. Two scenes of this fic kept coming to me like annoying little shits, and I end up writing a lot more than I intended. Once again, I'm just a brazilian girl miles away from Kentucky, so please forgive any mistakes and miss appropriations of our hero's home land. Hope you enjoy it!  
> EDIT: THANKS, THANKS, THANKS to our wonderful norgbelulah for being a great beta and having all the patience in the world. Really, you can't even begin to know how many mistakes there was in this work, and I'm sorry so many of you got to read it before she beta'd. THANK YOU, YOU'RE LOVELY!

A little shit. Just a little shit armed with a shitty kitchen knife in this shithole of a trailer in fucking Harlan. Raylan can barely believe that after everything, after putting down so many known killers and mobsters in epic shootings, after facing ruthless murderers and vicious criminals, he’s going to die by the hands of a little shit like Jimmy, the bartender.

Naked, tied to a dirty bed, his whole body covered in shallow cuts, blood dripping on the floor. Blood dripping from the deep cut right below his right hip bone, blood dripping from his tied wrists, blood dripping from his left thigh. This is how he dies. He won’t see his baby grow, he won’t have another chance with Winona. This is the end, and he dies.

He thinks he hears Boyd Crowder’s voice right before the end, so he must be going to hell.

*****

He wakes up, because this could not be the end. He wakes in a hospital bed, feeling as if someone had tried to fit his whole body in a paper shredder, and it somehow got stuck over his hips. He won’t think about that too much – about Jimmy getting him naked and slicing his body with patience and method, enjoying every drop of blood, every shiver and every painful moan.

He won’t think about that night because he knows that, if he’s awake, then Boyd killed Jimmy.

He learns that they are all dead now – Jimmy, Johnny, Wynn Duffy. Well, he knew about Duffy already, of course: he was the one that put a bullet through him. But he learns from Art that everyone involved in the attempt of taking the Harlan Kingdom from his King and Queen are now dead, that this war is over. It ended with Boyd stabbing Jimmy in the whorehouse known as Audrey’s, with the same knife he was using to cut a marshal into small pieces.

On the record, Boyd was justified – it was his property, and the man had kidnapped an officer of the law. On the record, Jimmy and Johnny were just trying to steal money from his employer, a simple robbery gone south. That ain’t no war on the record, no kingdom, no friendship, no treason. On the record, Ava was Boyd’s sister-in-law.

Officially, Boyd wasn’t a broken, destroyed remnant of a man when Johnny killed Ava.

So Raylan learns that Boyd will walk free, though he doubts that Boyd will ever really be free again They say the man is just outside the room, sitting quietly for hours, waiting for him to wake up. He sends Tim to get him, but Boyd doesn’t come. What he manages to get from Gutterson is that Boyd is grateful to know that Raylan is going to be alright, but he has to take care of Ava now. The man leaves the hospital alone, and Raylan is still alive.

*****

Boyd comes back two days later, wearing black and a tired smile. He sits by Raylan’s bed and doesn’t say a word. Eventually, he sleeps where he is, curled upon himself in the horrible chair. Raylan manages not to get him kicked out of the room. He listens as Boyd cries in his nightmares for a whole hour. The cries don’t stop: Boyd just awakens.

He leaves and he comes back. He changes his shirt, but Raylan knows he hasn’t been home. They don’t say a word.

*****

One day Boyd leaves, and when he comes back, Raylan is up on his feet, getting ready to leave as well. Slowly getting ready to leave, mind you. He doesn’t think Boyd would answer his phone if he called – he’s not even sure Boyd has a phone these days, and he’s not willing to risk losing all contact with the man.

Boyd keeps looking at him in pure confusion. He opens his mouth as if he’s finally going to say something, but nothing comes out – he’s lost again. Raylan sighs and understands: this is what Ava left in the world. Now he’s the one who’s going to have to rise to the occasion.

Fuck.

“Let’s get out of here, Boyd.”

He has to keep a hand in Boyd’s arm to guide him all the way, and that’s a little unfair since he’s the one with stitches all over his left thigh. But he does it anyway, and Boyd only tries to free himself, a half-assed attempt, once. Boyd is the one to sign the hospital papers, and Raylan doesn’t think he’s reading anything. He could have sneaked a murder confession under that pile, he’s sure the man would have signed.

He’ll learn to be more prepared to occasions like that. He’s going to start walking around with murder confessions especially made for Boyd from now on.

They get to the car and enough is enough: Raylan throws him the keys. If he tries to drive, they’re not making to Raylan’s place.

“You drive. I’ll show you where to go. Just don’t go very fast, I’m still slow from the painkillers.”

Boyd manages not to have a nervous breakdown on the way to the bar. Raylan will count that as a victory, as soon as he succeeds in getting up the stairs without embarrassing himself.

*****

“Shower that way, there are clothes on the drawers. If you’re hungry you’ll have to go downstairs again; there ain’t nothing worth eating in here.”

Raylan waited until Boyd was oriented enough to stop hovering over the man and let him be for a while. Not that this would be very possible – the apartment was literally a bed, a wooden chest and the bathroom, the Tombstone poster Art gave him on the wall. Oh, and a Jim Beam bottle by the bedside table. So they’ll have to deal with their ghosts without much space between them.

By the time Raylan managed to get his shit together – change the hospital clothes for a wife beater and boxers, put away the chocolate Rachel brought him and throw away the fifteen get-well-soon cards Tim sent him just to be an annoying little shit, check to see if his stitches were all in place, take another pain killer just to manage to sleep okay – Boyd was out of the shower wearing a similar wife beater and some old sleeping pants Raylan forgot he ever owned.

“Where…?”

Raylan realized that was the first time he heard Boyd’s voice in a week. It wasn’t even a full sentence, barely a full word: it was more the movement of his head towards the space they were in, it was more of Boyd being lost and broken, it was the tiredness in his limbs and the sadness in his eyes.

_Where can I rest, Raylan, my friend, where in the world may I lay me down to sleep or die?_

“The bed, where else?”

Boyd lies in the bed, and the way he spreads his whole body with a tired sigh makes the whole picture do a wild turn: he’s not impossibly broken, he’s just tired, it’s the end of the day by the end of the week and they both just want to go to bed and maybe sleep in tomorrow. It’s all very domestic, even the way Boyd supports his head over one hand and looks at Raylan, waiting for him to get in bed.

Disturbing, yes, very much, thank you.

Raylan finally lays down his body, remembering that the last person he shared that bed with was Lindsay. When he looks up at Boyd the man is smiling slowly, and he doesn’t want to think about the last person Boyd shared a bed with. But she’s there. She’ll be there for a while, still.

“You’re a good friend, Raylan.” And he smiles again, they both can do this.

“You gonna kiss me?” because that’s the right thing to ask, the right joke to make, since Boyd is hovering over him by his side and that moment could get unnecessarily emotional, so being an ass is surely the right answer.

Boyd does kiss him, a long and slow kiss on the left cheek, right before he sighs again, a tired man.

*****

It doesn’t seem like it’ll last in the beginning: Raylan’s sure Boyd will wake one day and have breakfast and finally say he’s going back to Harlan. He still has a bar there, a house and whatelse. He has… well, a life: clothes and old pictures and his books and his criminal empire. His whores and his hidden money. He has all that. So in a week or two he’ll heal, just like Raylan is healing, and he’ll get up and leave.

Only, the days are passing and Boyd is not getting out of his life. Raylan is not worried – Boyd has lost a lot lately and he deserves a break from being a hillbilly kingpin. In fact, the longer Boyd spends away from Harlan the longer Raylan won’t have to arrest him, so it’s really a win-win situation.

He’s not exactly sure why he thought everyone would see it from his point of view, but he hasen’t really thought about how it would seem to the outside world.

It’s three days after he’s back in the officer when Art corners him and ask in a small voice.

“So, what do you think?”

“About?”

“Boyd Crowder. How do you think he’s taking it?”

Raylan doesn’t want to talk about the nightmares or sleepless nights, he doesn’t want to talk about the days Boyd will spend throwing up and crying in the bathroom, he especially would love to avoid the talk about the alcohol abuse and the suicide speeches.

“I think… he’s tough. He’ll get better, eventually.”

“Okay. So you’re not worried he’s planning something horrible against the Dixie Mafia or something like that?”

Raylan furrows his brows. The man can barely plan his next meal, let alone a war against the Dixie Mafia. But again, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I… really don’t think so. At least it seemed highly unlikely the last time I saw him.”

“Oh, really, Raylan?” Art was losing his patience and raising his voice, arms crossed in that way he does when he’s not believing a single word Raylan is saying. “And when, pray tell, was that?”

Raylan looked at his watch, just to be more of an asshole.

“Something like four hours ago. Give or take.”

“What?”

“What? He said he was going to the library this afternoon, see if he gets something to occupy his mind. He was cleaning the bathroom when I left. You want me to call him or something?”

“Raylan.” Deep breaths. Really, why was Art so mad? “Raylan, you’re still living with Boyd?”

“More like he’s crashing with me, yeah.”

“And you don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?”

“Art, the man just saved my life, for the fifth time or something. Besides, he lost… Damn, what do you want me to do, kick him out? He’s ain’t doing nothing criminal from my place, that’s for sure, and we don’t have anything against him, or he would be in jail already. Right now he’s a bar owner who’s crashing with his friend, so no, I don’t see nothing wrong about it.”

Art seemed to consider that for a long time. Raylan will add the whole “i’m-boyd’s-friend-i’m-not-boyd’s-friend” issue to the list of things he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Okay. Then, how long do you think he’s going to be away from his crime doings?”

“Not sure. The moment he’s back to Harlan I’ll let the office know, and we can go back to expect the worst from him.”

*****

He calls Boyd that afternoon. Just in case. Boyd answers with a whisper, and Raylan’s heart sinks.

“Why you whispering?”

“’Cause I told you this morning I was coming to the library, and now I’m fucking hiding in the Biology section ‘cause you don’t have the best timing in the world.”

That should be it, right?

Please, let it be it.

“There’s a reason why you called, Raylan?”

“C’mon, honey, just wanted to hear your voice.” Of course, that’s the moment Tim Gutterson decides to come to his desk, already grinning like a mad man. Raylan just mouths “It’s Boyd,” and gives him the finger, before turning his back to Tim.

“That’s very sweet of you, but I do believe you must be growin’ tired of my voice by now, darlin’.”

“Not so much, no. You haven’t been very talkative lately.” Then Raylan curses silently, because he knows exactly why Boyd hasn’t been the best company. “Look, I just wanted to check on you, make sure you’re doin’ alright.”

He hears silence on the other end of the line, and wonders if Boyd is just pissed off or if he’s hiding something. He’s not sure what the best option here is, but then he hears another voice, a female one: “Sir, no cellphones are allowed in the library. Please step outside.”

“Ma’am, I’m aware of that, is just my brother is sick and I was checking on him. If you could please accept my apologies, I’ll make sure it won’t ever happen again.” Raylan hears movement, and Boyd is back whispering on the phone. “Great, asshole, now I’m persona non-grata on the damn library. Talk to you later.”

So that settles it.

*****

They do talk, later. They talk more from that point on, and even though it’s annoying having Boyd running his mouth, it feels better that the silence, less… creepy. Less like they’re suffering, more like they’re just living.

Eventually, Boyd says he is not going back to Harlan. And that leaves them… well, leaves them in the same place they were before: sitting on the bed with a bottle of Jim Beam between then, distractedly playing a stupid card game.

“You gonna do something about the bar?”

“Sell it.” Boyd takes a swing at the bottle, and kicks Raylan’s ass in the game. “Wish I could do it from over here.”

“I could do it for you. I mean, I have to sell Arlo’s place. We could have Bob watchin’ the place for you, meanwhile.”

“There’s…”

“If there’s anything there you want that an officer of the law can’t see, you’ll have to get it yourself. If you want me to get some of your shit, shirts and stuff, I can, but that’s it.”

Boyd sighs. “I’ll go there. Run some errands and say my farewells. Then, I’ll let you sell it. Maybe give you a commission as well, what do ya think?”

“If you start paying for your own damn coffee I’mma be more than happy, Boyd.”

*****

Boyd goes to Harlan and comes back with a small bag full of worn out clothes. He’s left the vest and the pocket watch there, and he does start paying for his own coffee from that point on, as well as sharing the bills. Raylan doesn’t want to know how long the money’s going to last. In fact, he doesn’t want to know about the money: he goes to work early, comes back home, drinks with Boyd and they both go to bed. Those are quiet days, and you have to be thankful for the quiet.

Art asks him about Boyd a few other times. The first time, Raylan answers how Boyd is planning on selling the bar and never going back to Harlan. The second time, Raylan talks about Boyd looking for a job: the man wants to work in a place quiet, where he hopefully can read as well, so he’s looking for a a bookstore somewhere, even a coffee shop.

The times after that, Raylan doesn’t have much to say. Actually, he doesn’t think Art is looking for any specific answer: he’ll ask about Boyd just as he’ll ask about Rachel’s mom and nephew. “How’s your boy, Raylan? Everything all right? How about Boyd? Find a job yet?”. Sometimes Tim will ask about “your criminal boyfriend”, and Raylan will just answer with a raised finger. Sometimes Tim will ask about “your better half” or some shit like that and Raylan will still answer with a raised finger, but Tim will insist he just “wants to know how the guy’s doing”. So Raylan will tell him about Boyd’s new job, Boyd’s quarrel with the bar’s Pop Friday, Boyd’s reading material. It goes like that for a while.

*****

“And how’s the boyfriend?”

Raylan hopes the death glare he’s sending in Rachel’s direction is enough to convey the “Et tu, Brute?” he was feeling – Tim’s joke is already getting old enough that no one laughs anymore, he has no idea why Rachel would joy the teasing at this point.

Apparently, Rachel’s not very good at reading people, and gets the glare all wrong.

“What? Trouble in paradise? What did Boyd do now?”

Raylan sighs. He supposes it’s a good time for bitching, since he probably won’t get any sympathy from home. “The asshole keeps telling me I should read more, wants to assign me books like I’m back at high school.”

“He told you he wants to assign books?”

“No, ‘course not. I mean, he’s not that much of an asshole. He told me we should both read the same books before we go to bed, that way I won’t keep distracting him or somethin’.”

Rachel’s got a sly smile, and Raylan really don’t understand why is that.

“You stop to think maybe he just wants to share something with you, you know, so you can talk about it? Together?”

“We come from the same town, the same mines, we like the same music, we drink the same bourbon, we went to the same school, and now we share the same house. Damn, we even sleep on the same bed, for fuck’s sake. What else does he want?”

“Sharing is caring, Raylan.”

“That ain’t funny.”

Rachel raised her brows, looking back down at the report they should be working on.

“Those things never are. But you should try to read something with him anyway.”

Raylan is not surprised that, when he finally agrees, Boyd already has a copy of “Crime and Punishment” waiting for him on the bedside table. Bright side of the whole deal: Raylan actually manages to sleep before midnight for once, out like a light, the book still open over his chest.

*****

“What do you think I should do with the money?”

They’re both sitting at a table in the back, the bar still empty, french fries that’ll probably be their only meal in front of them.

“Hell if I know, Boyd. You say you don’t want to go back to Harlan, I think it’s time you leave that shit behind you. You should have done it twenty years ago, you know that. And I think you might be okay workin’ with books as you are now, might be… better. But that’s your money, so I have no say in what you’ll do with it, son.”

“And what if I want to…” Boyd swallows the beer, starts again. “What if is my desire to stay exactly where I am, Raylan?”

“Here in Lexington? I’m sure you can find many ways to spend your money, you won’t be lacking opportunities.”

“Are you seriously going to pretend you don’t understand what I’m asking you?”

Raylan sighs. There was no going around Boyd, but he really doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Look, I’m not kicking you out, am I? You want to stay, you have a drawer and place to sleep, just like always. You wanna leave, I ain’t stoppin’ you either. Just,” at that point Raylan raises a finger, leaning closer to Boyd. “if this lasts longer, we’re gonna have to talk about laundry duties.”

“Oh, c’mon, Raylan, I hate going to the landromat! I’ll do the dishes.”

“We never eat in; we don’t even have any dishes.”

“Ava used to do the laundry.”

That almost settles the matter, but Raylan can see the sly intentions behind Boyd’s eyes, can see the small smile playing on his lips, and that’s just wonderful, a miracle even: that he can say her name and not break, and not fall, and not be destroyed by it. Raylan smiles back.

“Good one, not gonna work this time. Try harder.”

“I’ll keep the place clean. You’ll never have to see a broom as long as I’m here. That enough?”

It had to be, for now, at least.

*****

Sometimes Raylan wonders about the sleeping arrangements. All the time, really, if he’s being honest. Because it’s different to sleep beside a man, totally different from sleeping beside a woman – men take more space, men are not soft or small; men are big and real and warm. So Raylan wonders, in passing.

He knows he must wonder since that wasn’t, you know, a planned decision he made – that was just where he said Boyd should sleep on that first night when they were back from the hospital. But now he knows Boyd isn’t going to wake up in the morning and move back to Harlan – no, Boyd has wall shelves with books and more than just one drawer of clothes. Boyd knows all the girls working in the bar by their names and he knows the best place to buy breakfast on Sunday morning when their usual spot is closed. So it’s quite safe to say he’s staying until at least the end of the week.

Boyd snores and turns and kicks, and Raylan spend several nights awake over the scent of Boyd’s skin – not a bad smell, not that. Boyd just smells like a man, a more earthy smell than Raylan is used to. Raylan sometimes wakes with Boyd’s breath on his skin, on his arms or over his neck. It’s a warm breath, and it smells like Boyd. Raylan doesn’t move away, but he wonders if he should.

*****

“…so now the fever is down, and the doctor doesn’t think he’ll be sick again anytime soon. She says Graham is a tough kid for a six month old.”

“That’s good to hear, Raylan. How ‘bout Boyd?”

Raylan immediately looks at his watch, wonder if it’s too early to call it a night. He’s already regretting agreeing to have drinks with Art alone: if Rachel or Tim were there, he could always change the subject in a more subtle way.

Lately, he’s been very defensive when talking with Art about Boyd – it’s been four months already, four months in which Boyd has been living as a good citizen and Raylan has been sleeping right beside him. In that time, Raylan has put up with all of Boyd’s crises, all of the nightmares and all of the guilt trips, he has put up with the way the man was just after, doubting they would ever see Boyd walking and talking like a normal human being again.

Now Boyd is working and laughing, making friends over the bar, watching movies and buying more books than their apartment can hold in. He’s planning on what to do with the money, he’s playing silly games with Graham to help him cope with the fever, he’s making Raylan’s coffee almost every morning. He’s well again, and he’s behaving the best he ever could, and Art could back the fuck down a bit, stop thinking about the man as if he’s a ticking bomb ready to explode any minute now.

“He’s fine.” Raylan finally answers, barely a whisper.

“Was he around through Graham’s fever?”

“Yeah.”

Art sighs – Raylan knows he’s being difficult but he’s kind of expecting today is the day Art will finally get a clue.

“Look, Raylan, you don’t have to be like that. I’m not gonna use this stuff against you, against him. I know you’re not talking with Tim or Rachel about it as well, and they’re your friends, goddammit. There’s a lot in everyone’s past but we’re more than ready to forget it, we all are. You ever wanna talk – no Raylan, this is not a joke. I know you think we can’t talk about this stuff anymore because he’s Boyd and because he’s a man, but hell, I don’t care, okay? No one does. We’re not messing with you on that.”

And hell. They weren’t. They really weren’t.

*****

So that’s how Raylan learns his friends think he’s having an affair with Boyd Crowder. He feels like he’s the most idiotic man to walk the earth after that – of course they think he’s having an affair with Boyd. Friends may crash in each other’s places, yes, but usually they don’t share a bed. In fact, thinking about it, there’s barely space for Raylan to live in that apartment. The level of intimacy is really a bit bigger than friends usually share.

So Raylan understands now why Tim and Rachel would talk about Raylan’s boyfriend without a hint of irony – they weren’t teasing him, they were just making sure Raylan understood they were okay with it. _It_ being the whole gay romance going on in his life, apparently.

Art apparently wasn’t worried (much) that Boyd was going to come back anytime to the criminal life: he was worried that he might break Raylan’s heart. Or something.

So yeah, his co-workers were completely crazy.

And amazing human beings, if they were ready to accept Boyd as Raylan’s lover without making a fuss about it. Honestly, Raylan is not sure that makes them better or worse. Maybe better friends and worse marshals.

Raylan goes home after that drink thinking about how to explain it to all of them in the next day. How to explain that, over those four months, half the days he went home fully expecting to find Boyd with slit wrists bleeding out on the shower. That he got the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to check if Boyd was still in bed, still breathing, still there. That he couldn’t kick him out, honestly, because kicking Boyd out would mean not looking out for him, not checking up on him, and that Raylan was just now back to trusting that Boyd wants to live.

He’s not sure he even wants to tell Art how Boyd wanting to live enough to see the end of the month is a huge victory, a tremendous battle that many times Raylan thought they would lose. He’s quite sure he doesn’t have the words to explain how the memories of Ava were destroying Boyd at first, but now he thinks those same memories can finally heal the man, can finally make him whole again. Just now they were finally having more good days than bad, and that was good, that was incredible, but Raylan is not sure he knows how to explain the complicated operation of putting the pieces of Boyd back together to anyone.

He gets home and Boyd is singing in the shower, his clothes for the next day spread over Raylan’s side of the bed. Raylan sees he’s bought five more books, and a new shelf. They’re going to need it.

Let them think whatever they want, Raylan resolves. It’s easier that way.

*****

“…and I’m not sure why the hell my wife thinks it’s so damn important for me to go shopping for Christmas with her! She’s going to choose everything anyway.”

“Don’t look at me, boss. If it ain’t books and it ain’t shelves, Boyd is not interested, so I have no sympathy to offer.”

“He’s still making your home the next city library?”

“Laugh away, Gutterson, see if I give a fuck. You’re the one getting a book for Christmas. Actually, you all are, so you can laugh all you want.”

“C’mon, you’re really gonna let him do that to us? Who the hell wears the pants in the house?”

“He does. I’m just a kept boy, didn’t you hear he’s a big criminal boss?”

The table roars with laughter.

*****

“… you gonna be late.”

“Don’t give a fuck.”

He sleeps.

Five minutes later – or what it feels like five minutes later:

“Your boss just called and told me they’re coming to get you.”

“Who’s them?”

“All of them.”

“Who’s all of them?”

“Dammit, Raylan, will you just get in the damn shower already! I’ll have coffee for you when you get out.”

Raylan is not sure how he was suddenly standing shirtless in the bathroom, but he has the feeling Boyd pushed him all the way. He looks over the bathroom window – still dark outside.

“Boyd, why am I up so early?”

“You have that thing you can’t talk about up in Paducah today.”

“But it’s still dark outside.”

“You have to be there by eight, if I’m not mistaken, or the guy will escape.”

“Still dark outside!”

“Boy, you forgot it’s a four hour drive to Paducah or are you just playing dumb? Now get under that shower before I get back to sleep and leave you all alone to face your boss’ wrath.”

Raylan is not sure what the hell he’s even doing, but he gets under the jet and start rubbing Boyd’s shampoo on his hair. Five minutes later he’s still washing his hair and there’s a knock on the door.

“You sleeping in there, Raylan?”

“…don’t think so.”

“You better make sure. Your boss is here and I bet he ain’t happy. I ironed your shirt, hurry up.”

Raylan tries to hurry up, but he gets the feeling he spends at least another five minutes trying to get the five ton of shampoo out of his head. When he finally goes out of the bathroom, only a towel wrapped around his waist, he blinks in shock: Art, Tim and Rachel are all sitting on his bed, while Boyd is going through his underwear drawer. As it is, the place is really crowded.

“What’ya doing here?”

“Well, princess, you were taking so long in that beauty shower we thought we should wait inside. Boyd let us in.”

“Boyd…?”

Boyd just looks at him as if he’s got half a mind to throw his naked ass over the window. Instead, he hands him his underwear and a freshly ironed shirt.

“Go get dressed, Raylan, before I drown you in that damn shower myself.”

“What did I do?”

Boyd just opens another drawer, and that’s their jeans drawer, so Raylan knows he’s only avoiding the question. There’s a coffee waiting for him on the bedside table, though.

“Oh, I don’t know, Raylan.” Tim answers instead. “Maybe you made him get up at three a.m. ‘cause you said you had to be ready before four and now you’re just standing in the middle of the room looking dumb?”

That might be it, yes, if the look in Boyd’s eyes is anything to go by. Boyd is not a morning person, but he doesn’t get slow in the mornings – he gets vicious. Raylan retreats to the bathroom and gets dressed in record time, praying the visit to Paducah takes longer than a day.

When he finally gets out again, Art is up on his feet, talking to Boyd in his serious voice.

“… so you may rest assured, Boyd, we’re gonna bring your boy back home in safety.”

Boyd looks over Art shoulder towards Raylan, the confusion clear on his face, as well as the beginning of a smile.

“Raylan…?”

Shit.

“Yeah, right… those guys like to tease me saying you’re my wife…” his lie sounded shitty even to his hears, but he thought maybe it could stick, giving the time of the day.

“No, we don’t. Why are you making us look like assholes?” Tim, ever helpful, provided.

The silence stretched for a second, a whole second where Raylan stood in the middle of the room, quite sure the only one looking like an asshole was himself.

Than Boyd saved him, and he was just as grateful as he was five months before.

“Deputy Gutterson, don’t mind Raylan, I won’t judge any of you by his sleepy words. I’m pretty sure half his brain is still shampooing his hair.” Boyd smiled sweetly at Raylan, and how the hell could he know about that? “I’m just surprised by your words, chief, ‘cause Raylan didn’t give me the impression this thing in Paducah was gonna get tricky.”

“Not likely, Boyd. We’re just there to help some friends out, and we’ll probably be back before dinner time, if Raylan manages to get ready any time before noon.”

“I’m ready, I’m ready. Let me just find my…”

“Wallet, in here. And your watch. I trust you know where your gun is.” Boyd stopped by his side, handing him his keys with a wink. “I guess they’re right about the whole wife teasing, hm?”

“Yeah… maybe.”

*****

Things get tricky in Paducah, and Raylan can only get back by lunch time the next day. He takes a long shower and thinks about waiting up for Boyd to come home – he could be back by six if he’s not running errands or driving the town searching for the perfect place to open his bookstore. He’s doing that more and more often, and Raylan knows it’s only a matter of time until he finds the perfect place. What that’ll change, only time can tell.

Raylan is asleep long before six – his whole body missed this bed, this room, this shithole of an apartment. He’s getting too old for this, and he can only imagine what it’s like to Art: leaving his nice, comfortable bed in his nice, big house, where he lives with a nice, pretty wife. Raylan doesn’t have any of that, still he can’t get enough of what he has now.

When he wakes up, Boyd is already back, and looks ready to go to bed. Ten p.m., the clock reads. They’re really getting old.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Raylan. Thought you were gonna sleep ‘till morning.”

“I’ve been sleeping for hours now, I got here it was close to noon.” Boyd sits on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard, as he does when he’s about to read. “How was your day?”

“Oh, it was great, darlin’, thanks for asking.” Raylan groans at the answer – he knew Boyd wasn’t going to forget that easy. “You wanna talk about that?”

No, was the short answer, but Raylan figured Boyd wasn’t really asking.

“They think we’re sleeping together.”

“That much is obvious, boy. You wanna tell me why?”

“Well, Boyd, why do you think?” Raylan can help but sit down on the bed and look around their shitty apartment, barely any space in it for them to walk around the furniture. “It’s not like we have the most normal living arrangement.”

Boyd goes silently for a second, as if considering if he really wants to say the next words. “If my staying here is making your life difficult…”

“They don’t care. They’re being really supportive; didn’t you see the way Art was talking to you? You’re not making anything difficult.”

Boyd smiles that shark smile, all sharpness and danger. “Why don’t you tell them the truth, then?”

Raylan stutters. He thought he was ready to answer those questions, but apparently he’s not and he knows Boyd is going to keep asking.

“Not sure. They… it’s…. Look, it’s not about them, okay? They can think whatever the hell they want.”

“They’re your friends.”

“It’s not about them. It’s about us.” He lays his head against the pillow again, feeling Boyd’s eyes on him from above. “I don’t care. I really don’t.”

Boyd lies as well, and turns out the lights. It’s ten p.m. and he’s been sleeping for the past five hours, they’re two grown man sleeping side by side every single night, this is his life now and Raylan realizes that’s what his body has been missing in the last day.

What the fuck.

“I don’t care either, Raylan. Really don’t.”

*****

It was Rachel’s birthday, so Raylan gets home more than a bit tipsy. He takes the longest shower and tries to get in bed without waking Boyd – he knows he won’t succeed, but he also knows he gets kudos for trying. It’s mid-summer and the apartment is the equivalent lovechild of a bookstore and a sauna: hot and suffocating. Raylan hopes he’s drunk enough to sleep through it, though he doubts it.

It also doesn’t help that Boyd is moving from side to side like a damn earthworm trying to carve his way through the mattress.

“Will you stop that, for fucks sake?”

“Can’t. It’s too fucking hot in here, Jesus, Raylan!”

Boyd sits up on the mattress, stripping his boxers and getting butt naked in the middle of the room.

“You’ gonna sleep naked?” Raylan asks dumbly.

“No, boy, I’m gonna take me a shower.” Boyd stops briefly, turns towards Raylan, and doesn’t make the slightest movement to hide his body. “But if that was an invitation, you’re gonna have to extend it to a place where I don’t feel the bed sheets sticking to my skin, like, let’s say, your shower.”

Raylan keeps staring, mouth open, heart beating fast against his chest. He watches as Boyd walks in the apartment, his silhouette against the bathroom light. He gets inside the shower but leaves the bathroom door open, and _that_ is as clear as invitations get.

*****

Raylan only gets that he’s sitting in Art’s office when he’s there for at least ten whole minutes. He thinks Art is probably waiting for him to say something, but the man is being quite subtle about the whole thing, pretending to read the reports Raylan is quite sure he never reads.

He thinks he came to talk about the thing, to say it out loud. Because he can’t quite believe last night happened, and he was a bit drunk to tell the truth, so he thinks he should say it out loud, to another person, just to make sure the whole thing is real.

He opens his mouth, and Art lowers the papers. Nothing comes out.

“Raylan, is there something you need to tell me?”

“I’m… not sure, Art.”

“It’s about a case?” Raylan quietly denies. “About Boyd?”

Silence.

“Look, Raylan just… you have problems to solve at home? Want some time off to think about it?”

“No… it’s nothing serious.”

“Okay. Why don’t you go call Boyd then? We don’t need you right this second.”

He calls Boyd. He makes the same call thrice: lets the phone ring once each time, and hangs up right after. Boyd is going to be home when he gets there, they can talk over dinner. Or even better: they could not talk about it at all, that would be great as well.

Boyd calls him once, and he doesn’t answer.

By lunch time, both Rachel and Tim are engaging him in the stupidest argument ever, and Raylan can’t find a way to tell them he didn’t have a fight with Boyd. He gets a call from an unknown number, and it’s not incredibly surprised when he hears the familiar, “Hello, Raylan” from the other side of the line.

“Did you call me?”

“No.”

“Raylan, you’re a terrible liar over the phone. You freaking out about this yet?”

_Yes._

“I wanna have sex with you.”

That… was not the answer Raylan thought he was going to give Boyd, and it didn’t even made much sense, but now it was out there, so there’s that.

“Well… you had already, if I’m not mistaken.”

“No, I wanna have sex with you again.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, not now, not now _now_ , but yes, later, tonight. I wanna have sex with you tonight.”

There’s a pause, but Raylan’s not very scared: he’s quite sure Boyd is just holding back a laugh.

“Okay, then.”

“And tomorrow night. And the night after that.”

“Not possible, Raylan.”

Okay, maybe he’s a bit scared. “Why not?”

“The night after tomorrow I’m planning on cutting my hair. Sex is out of question.”

“Boyd, you think this is a game…”

“No, Raylan, but you must be under the impression that that’s what it is. What about this situation is bewildering you? Is this really such an unforeseeable turn of events? Such an unnatural development of our relationship?”

“Well, Boyd, I guess that depends on how you see our relationship. If I stop and think about the fact that I shot you and about all the times I arrested you, I have to say I’m a little bit surprised myself.”

“We’re not just that and you damn well know it. What? You think I spread my legs to every friendly lawman that arrests me?”

“Hope not, or I’ll have to kill that asshole Colton.”

“C’mon now, Raylan, I barely sucked him off!” Raylan laughs at that, but it’s a small sound, because if he’s honest he’s still quite afraid. “Look, Raylan, if what you’re telling me is that you want us together, I’m more than glad to agree with it. I think it’s about damn time we stop being idiots about it. And if you want to freak out a bit, that’s alright as well, but I’ll tell you now I won’t be that patient for long, ya hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

*****

Rachel is still somehow celebrating her birthday, because apparently being single and a birthday girl is the most amazing thing ever. So they go out for drinks again by the end of the week, just a few shots on the bar down the street.

“So, I’m sleeping with Boyd.” is Raylan opening line.

The three marshals look at him with suspicious looks on their faces. Or, you could say they had a whole “what-the-hell” expression.

“Yeah,” Tim agrees very slowly, as if Raylan is a child. “Anything else you’d like to say on the matter?”

“I haven’t been.” Raylan takes a sip of his beer and catches that they’re still not following them. “I haven’t been sleeping with Boyd all this time, we only slept together for the first time this Thursday.”

They’re all looking at Art now, so it makes sense he takes the lead.

“Raylan. You’re telling us that you have been living with Boyd for the past six months and only now you two had sex?”

“Yep, that’s about it.” Raylan takes his vibrating cell phone and puts it in the table they are sharing – the damn thing is driving him mad, Boyd’s an asshole. “He was just crashing at my place for a while, than he was staying for good, and now we had sex.”

“’Course you did.” Rachel agreed, downing a shot. “And all that stuff about you distracting him in bed?”

“What? Oh, before? I don’t know. We talked, I guess. I used to dare him to play cards with me, said he was a pussy for not wanting to play. That kind of stuff.”

“Oh, you were just pulling his pigtails, sure.” And seriously, Tim had to be always so _damn helpful_?

“Raylan, not that this isn’t a fascinating subject, but what the hell is wrong with your cellphone? This thing don’t stop vibrating the damn table, is getting on my nerves.”

Raylan looked at the ID. Of course, “Boyd Crowder” was writing on the display.

“Boyd is teasing me ‘cause I told him I was gonna talk about us to you guys today. Said I was worrying over nothin’, that you guys were cool. Then he said he was gonna call every two minutes to check if I wasn’t arrested or somethin’.”

Art, without a single warning, answered the phone, putting it on speaker phone - and really, when did Art realized you could do that with cellphones?.

“Raylan?” Boyd’s voice was a bit worried, as if he wasn’t expecting Raylan to answer at all.

“Mister Crowder, so glad you called, we were just about to try and reach you. This is Chief Art Mullen speaking. We have to inform you we taken your current partner, Raylan Givens, in custody.”

Art kept his most professional tone of voice, and Rachel had to cover her mouth to muffle the laughing. Lucky for Art’s prank, the bar was still empty.

“Wait, chief, I guess that must be a mistake…”

“No mistakes. Raylan came to my office to talk about the nature of your relationship and as a Chief of an US Marshal’s Office I can’t ignore the implications of his statement.”

“But how… why…?”

“You see, mister Crowder,” Tim was now trying his best to use his no-bullshit voice, but wasn’t quite managing. “there is legislation that prevents an deputy US Marshal from participating in any form of association with dicks that ain’t his own, so we’re gonna have to take arrest Raylan. It’s really out of our hands.”

Rachel was laughing freely now, and Raylan could almost hear the relief in Boyd’s voice.

“Is that so, Deputy Gutterson?”

“Also,” Art kept going. “We have a strict code about gay cowboys, and it only allows cowboys to be homosexuals if they’re officially part of the Village People, and since this is not the case…”

“Raylan, you there?”

Raylan thought about keeping his silence, but Rachel’s laugh was the only tip Boyd would need. “I’m here, Boyd.”

“Well, let me tell you somethin’, boy, you won’t be associating with any dick tonight just for letting your friends nearly cause me a goddamn heart attack.”

“C’mon, Boyd, that’s not fair! Not even if I dress up like the cowboy from Village People?”

“And pray tell, how is that any different from any other given day?”

Tim was red in the face, and they were all still on their first drink.

*****

A year later, looking at the mirror, Raylan will still be able to see the thin line that crosses his left thigh, and remember the face of the little shit who almost took his life. A year later, Boyd still has the occasional nightmare, but that’s how things are: it’ll hurt and it’ll be bad, but I’ll also be good, it’ll also be life.

He doesn’t think about hell when he hears Boyd’s voice any longer, and that’s something, that’s enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> SO IS IT SHITTY OR WHAT? It doesn't even have a sex scene, I know, I know. You wanna scream at me for being a shitty fic writer, I'm at ohthati.tumblr.com ; feel free to abuse my askbox.


End file.
